So a while back I posted a thread about my ideas for improving the core gameplay of AC Unity, and while many of you agreed with my complaints about stealth, looking back now I see why my idea for the combat didn't really fit in an AC game. Now I have another idea, but for all I know, it may not be what the series needs at all. I don't know how far in to development Ubisoft are in AC Victory, meaning ideas people come up with now may not be implementable, but if you do like it then why not put this in to a future AC title?

Firstly here are the problems with the AC Unity combat. OK, so I think it's a good thing that the combat is hard, but all they've done is simplified it and made the warning for an attack shorter. I mean it's all well and good from a stealth perspective, you never approach missions with combat, but because the way the combat has been designed, you have no choice but to be stealthy, no matter how good you are at combat. The thing is that, being good at the combat in Unity basically means that you don't get hit, that is to say that you never miss a parry. This is the only real thing that distinguishes the skillful from the clumsy, and problem with that is with a large group of guards, there are so many attacking you that all this parrying means you don't have time to actually deal damage to them. This means that battles get considerably longer with the more guards you have, and this means however good you are, you are likely to take damage at some point and can't efficiently get rid of these guards. Skillful players should be able to quickly remove guards, ONLY if they are good enough. This doesn't mean make it easy, but introduce something where skill gives you the advantage of finishing your fights. In this game, you're supposed to be able to choose your play style and all, but especially with missions such as heists, you are being constantly forced to go stealthy. I think the lengthy battles are also making the combat boring, unlike in AC3, when there was so much variation, I found it far more fun to free roam and get in to big fights, in Unity all that keeps me entertained are the stealth missions and the parkour. Compare this to a first person shooter, where the skill comes from the accuracy of your thumbs. Something like this would be ideal because the most accurate people are those that can pull off headshots and quickly get kills. No I'm not saying make AC and FPS, to be honest I hate them, but some of you may see where I'm going with this...

Haven't you always wanted to actually CONTROL the sword in games like this, instead of pressing buttons and watching animations? What I propose is something I call 'fencing mode'. At some point during combat, you can click in the left thumbstick (the one you use to move) and you enter this special mode. The camera angle fixes to behind the character's head so you can see what you doing, and he gets in to a stance where he hardly moves. Now control of you sword/heavy/long/rifle (I'll call it sword for the rest of this) is passed to the left thumbstick and the right one is used to turn and move VERY slowly. In this mode you have very low mobility, so you can't dodge attacks and you can't move around much. Attacking is no longer just pressing 'x'/'square' the same way parrying is no longer 'b'/'circle'. Instead, you manually swipe the sword, but that's not it, because just getting the sword into the correct area doesn't do anything. You need to now press 'x'/'square' at the right moments for him to drive his sword forward/ actually deal damage with it. You may hold the button down and move around the sword but enemies find this easier to parry, it would take skill to move it so they miss. Timing the press of the button with movement of the thumbstick well deals serious damage. But don't think this is just aimless sweeping of the thumbstick and tapping of the button. Where the sword hit depends on you controlling the thumbstick, and hitting in very precise areas can be an instant kill (e.g. neck, heart, forehead) maybe followed by a cool animation like in AC3. Holding the thumbstick in a specific area and pressing would be a stab I guess, and then you can time it with movements as well to swipe or smash the opponent. It's really up to you. I mean, you could repeatedly hack at a guards neck, go in for an over head swing, or a precise stab between the eyes.

As mentioned before, parrying is no longer the same. Just like with attacking, you simply move the sword in to position but instead you press 'b'/'circle'. This would require extra skill, and what I was thinking, is that if you do this successfully you can then tap 'x'/'square' for a counter kill like in the previous games with an awesome animation. Also, like before, if you hold the button and move the thumbstick it comes with disadvantages, in this case the inability to counter kill. This way, skill allows you to quickly eliminate enemies. I don't think it should be incredibly hard, and the game helps you a bit with accuracy, so not to frighten 'clumsy' people from switching to this mode. There needs to be an incentive that keeps in and out of 'fencing mode' to give more variety to fights. It shouldn't be that someone always stays in one mode because they find themselves better in that, and there need to be clear pros and cons in different situations to keep you switching. Or of course what I was thinking, so as to not make it too OP for those who find this easy, and to bring some variation, after 3 consecutive kills (without getting hit) or after a counter kill you automatically leave 'fencing mode' and have to wait some time, or (I don't now about this) for something else to happen (e.g. 3 kills, a finisher, 3 perfect parries) before you can go back in to the mode. Of course you can always manually exit just by repressing the left thumbstick in, and this would be useful for example when you need to dodge one of those strong attacks. Another idea I had to keep people in and out of the mode was to always have an instakill on stunned guards (after perfect parry or staggering strike) when in 'fencing mode'. Also, people have wanted the double counter kills back, so I was thinking, to not make them OP, you could do them when someone attacks you (not necessarily in 'fence mode') and you have a stunned enemy near to you, so you perform the counter on the attacker and the stunned guard, by pointing the thumbstick towards the stunned guard and tapping 'x'/'square' for the counter kill. This might actually be too easy, so maybe in coop if a guard attacks your friend at the same time as you, when you two parry, an animation starts where you both together perform a double counter kill, and in some ways this is better. Any high mobility moves like this either require you to not be in 'fencing mode' or automatically take out of it after performing them. Another coop feature could be that when you and your friend enter 'fencing mode' then if close to eachother, you automatically stand back to back protecting eachother from rear attacks, seeing as these would probably be harder to parry normally.

I think I've addressed all of the ideas I had and personally, it's something I've always wanted in a game, and while I bet there is one out there with something similar, I've never played a game with a feature like this, giving you full control of the weapon's movement. The two modes have their own pros and cons that hopefully add a lot of variation to the combat and allow the skillful to efficiently finish fights. Definitely share your opinions. Could this even work? Do you want this in an AC game? Am I insane? What other suggestions/improvements are there?